Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Flydubai, Dubai’s first low-cost airline began its commercial operations on June 1st.

The inaugural flight took off from Dubai International’s Terminal 2 at 10:30 bound for Beirut.

FlyDubai is currently flying to Beirut and Amman. They will start flights to Damascus and Alexandria next week and plan to expand rapidly to countries in the Middle East, GCC and India. The evenutal plan as stated on their website is to extend to Iran, Eastern Europe and North & East Africa.

Fares are really low. For eg there is currently a flight from Alexandria to Dubai for 825(LE) Egyptian pounds. When I checked a week ago. A return flight between Cairo and Dubai was roughly costing about 3000LE on Emirates airlines and 2100LE on Egypt Air.

How does flydubai keep its fares low?1. The tickets are one way tickets for one person, priced on a system based on availability, demand, time of day etc etc. Quoted prices include all applicable taxes. Prices will be quoted in the currency of the country of departure of the flight2. You pay to change: If for some reason, you need to change your flight, you pay 100dhs per ticket plus the price difference from your original ticket if upwards and get a voucher refunded to you if the price moves downwards. You do have to pay the 100dhs charge per ticket, no matter what the scenario. (There are "free to change" tickets too, but these are normally priced higher than "pay to change")3. Changes or cancellations can only be carried out 24 hours prior to the flight. Any later than that, you lose the whole amount.4. Children above the age of 2, pay full fare.5. If traveling with a child below the age of 2, there is a service charge of 50dhs plus taxes.6. Fares are lower if you book from the website. A service charge is levied if you book via their dedicated call center (35dhs) or through an agent.7. The quoted fare allows you upto 10kilos of hand baggage. You have to pay higher for more luggage. If you pre book your extra luggage on the website, it will be cheaper than just arriving at the airport and then paying for the luggage.For eg: Your 1st piece of checked in baggage (upto 32 kilos) if pre booked online will cost 40dhs, but if you do it at the airport, it will cost you 150 dhs. The 2nd piece will cost 100 and 150 respectively.8. If you want to select your seat, you pay 5dhs.9. If you want a seat with extra legroom, it is 50 dhs.10. A boarding pass is issued as soon as you book your ticket.

In these times of Recession, this airline could really take off, if they find a large enough market segment.

As I see it, business and holiday travelers without much luggage could find this airline cheaper than its competitors.

For those people I have often seen in the Dubai airport ahead of me, trying to check in 5-7 suitcases each on Egypt Air flights back to Cairo while trying to semi-conceal another 4-6 pieces of hand luggage, this would not be an economical choice.

Nor would it work for people who travel to Dubai with the primary purpose of shopping. I have seen so many piles of new clothes and childrens toys unceremoniously dumped in heaps at Dubai's airport, because paying the excess baggage fee on Emirates airlines does not make those clothes and toys worth it. People seem to find it cheaper to just dump the stuff (some with tags not yet removed) than pay the excess baggae fee. These people aren't going to be travely FlyDubai any time soon.

This will work for people who just carry their laptop and a change of clothes or two. Its also just 40dhs more for 1 piece of checked in baggae provided you book it online at the time of booking your ticket. So this option will work for a weeks long travel.

I wonder if the airline allows toiletries in hand luggage with the above restrictions that they have placed. If they dont, it would be cheaper to buy and discard toiletries on arrival than pay 100dhs to check it in.

They must have researched their pricing before coming out with this strategy. It will be interesting to see how full their flights go. There is a large market, given that it is still impossible to get a ticket on a Thursday evening Emirates flight from Dubai to Cairo, if you haven't booked well in advance.